On the Run
AFTERTHOUGHT
By JOHN WELLS
Our instruction began in conditions of maxi- mum security behind a high perimeter fence, topped with barbed wire, in a battle camp in North Wales. We were surrounded on every side by high green hills with outcrops of grey rock and tumbled stone walls, silent except for the bleating of grubby grey sheep which were shot at with light machine-guns and rifles, with great enthusiasm but little apparent effect, on those rare occasions when we were allowed out of the camp to make the valleys echo on a live- firing exercise. We stood to attention in a damp Nissen hut, crop-headed and wearing overalls suggesting some less enlightened forced-labour
scheme in Siberia, and were asked to sit down please by ¶% nice officer in the Gurkhas with slightly prominent front teeth and a black moustache.
Laying his leather gloves on the table, he explained that the object of this exercise was to avoid capture, and to break through a strong cordon of' watchful security guards, assisted by the local constabulary, who would be sur- rounding the camp. Other patrols would be scouring the hills searching for us, and if we were not back by nightfall we should have failed. The security patrols would then pre- sumably start scouring the hills in deadly earnest. We were to be issued with haversack rations, a map of the area and a compass, and would be dropped somewhere within a twelve- mile radius of the camp. We were encouraged to disguise ourselves, and to make use of our fieldcraft and crawls. We should be working in pairs. If there were no questions, the convoy would move off.
It was only when we were sitting in the three- ton lorry, watching the green-grey landscape dwindling behind us, that the hopelessness of our task began to become apparent. Dressed as we were in heavy hobnailed boots, army overalls, belts and berets, we realised the impracticability of the more exciting possibilities suggested by escape stories of the last war. Theatrical cos- tumiers were rare in that part of Wales, and the more generous countryfolk who might out of the goodness of their hearts have provided us with odds and ends out of granny's dressing- up trunk had become alarmed at the sudden explosion of erratically-aimed mortar bombs and ill-advised bursts of machine-gun fire, and had
for the most part prudently moved way. It also struck us that pairs of curiously dressed grannies in big army boots clambering over barbed-wire fences high up in the hills might alert the sus- picions even of the black-moustached Gurkha officer with the prominent teeth. Certainly subtleties like forged passports and an authen- tic Welsh accent, we decided, as the truck stopped to let us climb out in some deserted lane, were out of the question.
We were sitting under a hedge by the road- side, eating our thick corned-beef sandwiches and looking out gloomily over the wet open countryside that descended gently to our objec- tive round a bend in the valley, when a local policeman bicycled up. He wished us good day. We discussed the weather, and he asked us if were were from the camp, then. We said we were, and he leaned on his bicycle and said we had a fair amount of running about to do, he imagined. We agreed that we had. He showed some interest in our haversack rations, observed that man could not live by bread alone, as they say, and that he must go and have his dinner. He then pedalled away down the road and was soon lost to sight. Immensely en- couraged at our ice-cold nerve and evasiveness, we set off walking down the road after him, occasionally turning, when we heard a car behind us, to thumb a lift, but without success.
Far away, up in the hills, we occasionally caught sight of pairs of tiny figures, scrambling among the wet rocks, but otherwise the country- side was peaceful, and it was difficult to believe that we were actually on the run. The weather, I remember, suddenly improved halfway through the afternoon, and when we reached the next little village the slate roofs were all shining in the sunshine, there was a blue sky over the green valley and it was all very agreeable.
We stopped at the local post office and sent off a few picture postcards, and then to our great surprise found a tea-shop, with a quiet back room with a carpet on the floor and white cloths on the tables, and a little window with a distant view of the hills. We had tea and hot Scones and butter, talked for some reason about romantic poetry, and lay about smoking cigarettes in the manner of undergraduates on a late-nineteenth-century walking tour. The fact that we were dressed in overalls and large boots seemed only to add to the feeling of stolen pleasure, and we were extremely reluctant to leave. Fortunately, we were then joined by two others who had been clambering about in the wet grass and were equally delighted to find this little asylum, and the jokes and light literary conversation continued until late in the after- noon when the sun was beginning to go down.
Sticking to their theory that the only safe route was to avoid the main roads, the others set off across a high sloping field, and we continued along the road between the dry stone walls. Almost immediately a car overtook us, and stopped. He could not take us very far, he said, as he was only going down to the army camp to deliver some stuff for the NAAFI. We got in, and were just approaching the camp when we saw in the distance that two NCOs were flagging the car down, indicating that it should pull in. We both slid down behind the driver's seat, told him to pay no attention to the irre- sponsible practical jokers at the roadside, and were let out a few moments later at the back door of the NAAFI. If it is of any comfort to the police, it was only after double egg, chips and beans that we discovered we were the only ones to get through.
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